Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 396 Acquisition Conditions
"President, President Kikuno is calling."

As soon as Masato Takeshita left Google, he received a phone call from the United States.

He was physically and mentally exhausted, but he couldn't refuse to answer the call.

"Well, give it to me."

"Hi!"

After pressing the start button and exchanging casual greetings, Shinji Kikuno began to get down to business.

"Chairman, SoftBank's Masayoshi Son is preparing to increase his investment in Yahoo. What do you mean by that?"

Masayoshi Son is very optimistic about the development of the internet industry, but he is also somewhat uncertain, which is why he used the strategy of investing in 1% of stocks last time.

After several months of in-depth understanding, he had a general grasp of the industry.

This time, he's going all in; it's all or nothing.

“Of course, no problem. Tell him that Yahoo is now valued at $5 million, and he can get 20% of the shares.”

When Masayoshi Son invested in Yahoo in his previous life, he was very assertive and told Jerry Yang and others directly that they had to accept his investment.

If he doesn't accept that, then he will invest in Yahoo's competitors.

Jerry Yang had never encountered this type of investor before, so he had no choice but to agree to his demands. As a result, Masayoshi Son acquired a total of 33% of Yahoo's shares.

However, Jerry Yang didn't lose out either, because Masayoshi Son offered what was considered an astronomical sum by the world—$1.08 million.

With young people around in this generation, he naturally wouldn't allow Masayoshi Son to be too presumptuous.

The 20% stake was already given because he could help Yahoo develop.

"Yes, President!"

While Masayoshi Son set his sights on Yahoo, Takeshita's prey, the young man turned his attention to his SoftBank Group.

The next day, Masato Takeshita arrived at Xinghai Investment early.

“Jiaben-san, start acquiring SoftBank stock. This company has a promising future.”

As a pioneer and trailblazer in the internet industry, Masayoshi Son has played a vital role in the development of the internet industry.

He also used this to achieve an explosive increase in his popularity, thus becoming a symbol of an era.

Meanwhile, his SoftBank Group has also seen its market value continuously rise during the development of the internet industry.

If Xinghai Capital had invested at this time and withdrawn before the stock market crash, it could have earned at least ten times its initial investment.

Such a good business opportunity is not something we can easily miss.

"Yes, President."

The Zodiac Fund has been fully invested, and Jiabenlong is preparing to invest using the Cipai Fund.

It just so happens that the Cipai Fund is an internal fund of the company, which needs to take into account the domestic stock market and holds a large amount of Japanese yen assets.

This sudden investment came at just the right time.

"Furthermore, we need to establish another venture capital firm, primarily investing in the domestic internet and technology market."

Even a weakened camel is bigger than a horse; Japan has still seen the rise of numerous internet companies during this wave of internet development.

However, most of these companies either lacked ambition or failed in their transformation, and have since disappeared into the past.

None of this matters. In any case, Xinghai Investment will choose to liquidate all its stocks, regardless of which country they belong to, before the 21st century.

"Yes, how much capital is needed?"

"An initial investment of 500 billion yen should be about right."

"Yes, that's enough."

Japan's internet market is much smaller than that of the United States and lags behind the US, so it simply cannot use much capital in the short term.

The current 500 billion is enough to support the development of the new venture capital firm for several years.

"Okay, let's decide on this for now. As for the specific investment projects, you can decide that."

"Yes, understand!"

Kaben Longzheng had a serious expression on his face, and he secretly resolved to do his best.

"Angel rounds are hard to judge, and Series A isn't very good either, so we'll invest in Series B and Series C from now on."

"It's okay to earn less; the safety of my funds is the most important thing."

Having made up his mind, Kamoto Ryoma felt much better.

He can't afford the cost of a failed investment right now, because he's still hoping to go further in the future.

"Another thing is the company name. They directly add the word 'Japan' before 'Xinghai Venture Capital' to indicate that this is a venture capital company that specializes in investing in the Japanese market."

Several venture capital firms will eventually merge, so there's no need to think too much about the name.

Furthermore, Xinghai Investment's main focus is still on its fund business. Venture capital is just a supplement, and there's no need to make it seem like it's receiving too much attention.

In addition to Japan, Masato Takeshita also wants to establish venture capital firms in mainland China and Taiwan.

These two regions, both belonging to China, will experience decades of rapid growth.

But there's no need to rush right now; the opportunity will be better when the Asian financial crisis breaks out.

After explaining the situation, Masato Takeshita did not linger.

He quickly returned to the group headquarters to continue processing the important documents that had piled up over the past few days.

Typically, this means that a company is preparing to expand its business and needs a new investment.

In simpler terms,
Elder Deng, I need to spend money, hurry up and generate gold coins.

Normally, young people will only glance at it once and then give their approval.

He will only scrutinize a project carefully or reject it outright if the funding pattern is too unusual or the investment project is too outrageous.

Besides documents asking for money, another major focus is on self-praise type documents.

The subsidiary used documents to inform young people how successful our development has been.

Profitable companies boast about their profitability, while unprofitable companies boast about their business scale. Those that don't boast about either emphasize their future prospects.

In short, these kinds of reports are just a way of taking credit.

Of course, the most numerous documents are factual documents.

These documents, along with his personal inspections, together constitute his understanding of the companies under his control.

As long as the overall direction remains correct, minor issues will have little impact.

The only difficult issue is corruption. No matter how much Xinghai Group emphasizes it, a lot of people are still investigated every year.

After the investigation, Xinghai Group couldn't go too far, so they could only send them to a remote area where they wouldn't have to see them or worry about them.

If someone is exceptionally talented, they can be directly placed in markets in poorer countries like Africa.

In these places, as long as you can make money for the company, embezzlement is acceptable.

Without them, Xinghai Group would never have entered these markets.

In addition, this also serves as a deterrent.

Compared to places like Africa, people would rather go to jail in Japan.

While prison conditions in Japan weren't as extreme as those in later Scandinavian countries, they were still relatively comfortable. At least food and drink were plentiful, and there was no need to work, placing them in the upper-middle class.

As for the top Nordic countries, prison bars are so effective they seem to encourage crime.

Not only is the food excellent, but there are also numerous entertainment options to choose from.

For example, sports such as rock climbing, basketball, and football; and everyday activities such as cooking, woodworking, and welding...

The prison's natural environment is also top-notch, like a large garden villa.

What's even more absurd is that there are video game consoles and other entertainment products in the prison, which is simply outrageous.

Besides employees who made mistakes, there were also ambitious individuals within the Xinghai Group who proactively requested to go to impoverished countries.

These ambitious employees naturally chose China first. While its social order isn't as good as Japan's, it's still far better than other impoverished countries.

The second choice is Southeast Asia, Brazil, and the CIS countries.

Of these three places, one has a relatively low crime rate among Japanese, one has a large population of people of Japanese descent, and one has a relatively good economy.

The third option is Latin American countries other than Brazil, as well as some other poor Asian countries.

The last choice is naturally Africa; those who know, know.

As for why China ranks first, besides security, it's also largely due to career advancement considerations.

Xinghai Group values ​​the United States and China most in its overseas markets and is most willing to promote executives from these two regions.

The US is a highly competitive destination, with fierce competition. While China isn't easy either, it's certainly simpler compared to the US.

As a result, ordinary executives who are not very experienced and do not have a strong background prefer to use China as a springboard.

In addition, those who excel in the Chinese market are more likely to obtain important positions.

Taking Xinghai Group as an example, about half of the newly promoted senior executives each year come from mainland China.

This is quite natural. Although Xinghai Group has not invested as much in China as it has in the United States, its scale is much larger and it has created more high-level jobs.

As a result, more people are naturally promoted.

Unlike in the United States, its business is mainly concentrated in four major areas: food and beverage, apparel, finance, and electronics retail.

Food and beverage and finance are among Xinghai Group's core businesses.

However, for these two items, food and beverage are relatively peripheral within the core business, while finance is too specialized and requires fewer people.

In this way, they naturally cannot compete with the management of the Chinese market, which has expanded across the entire industry.

Making money is important, but there are many things that are more important to a company than making money.

It took Masato Takeshita more than a week to process the pile of documents.

"Ah, at least I can finally rest for a while."

The young man stretched and decided to spend three days playing games in his office, enjoying a life where he spent his days either playing games, eating, or sleeping.

"Hmm, what should we play?"

Masato Takeshita looked at the room full of arcade machines and the individual game consoles, and was caught in a state of decision paralysis.

"Okay, let's play Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Because it was released relatively early, the Three Kingdoms War Chronicles produced by Xinghai Games was extremely popular.

Sales in Japan are close to 4 units, and global sales are approximately 15 units.

As for data on piracy, it's simply impossible to keep track of it all.

In the Greater China region alone, there are countless pirated arcade games.

This is already a huge hit, and only fighting games have been able to surpass it recently.

After being released on game consoles last year, it also achieved good sales.

Although it didn't reach the million mark, it still sold over 70 copies.

It can only be said that no matter how classic a game is, if it's released in the wrong era, its sales will still be poor.

"Let's try out Pig Brother first to get a feel for the game, and aim to clear it with one coin."

After working day and night for three days and three nights, Masato Takeshita finally managed to vent most of his work-related frustrations.

He straightened his appearance, sat on the sofa in the office's reception area, and asked questions while drinking tea.

"Has anything been happening at the company these past few days?"

"President Ono of Seikai Communications called yesterday to inquire about your situation and expressed his desire to visit you in person."

The young man had informed Miho Uchida before playing the game that he shouldn't be disturbed unless it was something important, as he wanted to play to his heart's content for a few days.

Secretary General Uchida then refrained from knocking to notify the young man, and instead waited for him to come out on his own.

The president's instructions are always the most important thing.

"I see. Then let's tell him to come over now."

Masato Takeshita guessed that there had been progress in China, so his tone unconsciously became urging.

He was very eager to know what Huawei and ZTE were thinking at the moment.

Upon receiving a new notification from Miho Uchida, Kenji Ono immediately went to the Seikai Group.

"Good afternoon, Chairman."

"Yes, good afternoon, please have a seat."

Masato Takeshita greeted her with a smile, then turned his head gently to give instructions to Miho Uchida.

"Uchida-san, make a pot of tea."

"Yes, President."

Knowing that the two had important matters to discuss, Miho Uchida respectfully left the chairman's office after making tea.

She then stood outside the door to prevent any accidents from happening.

What are ZTE and Huawei's thoughts?

"Both companies are willing to accept our investment, but the cost is relatively high."

The heads of ZTE and Huawei, two telecommunications base station companies, are not the type to hold onto their shares tightly.

Needless to say, ZTE's founder and main leader, Mr. Hou Wengui, did not hold a majority of shares from the very beginning.

He managed ZTE primarily through his personal prestige, and therefore had no objection to the involvement of international capital in the company.

Ren Zhengfei, the founder and leader of Huawei, values ​​control more than shares in the company.

Shortly after Huawei's founding, he began giving away shares to external parties. Eventually, he gave nearly 99% of the shares to employees.

In addition, Ren Zhengfei has repeatedly expressed his desire to introduce international capital to enhance the company's strength.

Initially, they hoped to raise 30% of the shares, but later, seeing that no international capital was willing to take over, they were even willing to sell the entire company.

It was only after ultimately failing that they embarked on the path of complete independence.

It can be said that as long as Xinghai Group supports the two to continue to control the company, both of these talented managers are willing to accept investment from Xinghai Group.

"The cost is high, tell me about it."

"Huawei's demands are a $12 billion valuation and patent sharing with Xinghai Communications."

Mr. Ren is very ambitious and not content with just the rural switch market. He wants to enter the mobile phone base station field, and this is a great opportunity.

Although Xinghai Communications is not yet as advanced as Qualcomm, Siemens, and Ericsson, it is still a world-class communications company.

Once Huawei fully utilizes the technology provided by Xinghai Communications, it will immediately reach world-class levels.

"Sure, it's only $3.6 million. We'll agree to Huawei's request."

Although a market capitalization of $12 billion is indeed a bit of an exorbitant demand compared to Huawei's current sales of 15 billion RMB and profits of less than 2 million RMB, Masato Takeshita is still willing to pay it.

This is poised to become a major player in the future communications industry; investing early will give you a head start.

"But the technology needs to be shared, right?"

"Yes, sharing communication technology is indeed going too far."

After thinking it over, Masato Takeshita realized that he couldn't agree to all of Huawei's demands.

Promising too many things will give the outside world the impression that Xinghai Group is easy to bully.

"In this way, we can help Huawei develop PHS (Personal Handyphone System) base stations. As for mobile phone base stations, we will only transfer some of the technology."

Huawei's current technological capabilities are still quite limited; what it needs more is the PHS (Personal Handyphone System) base station project.

As for mobile phone base stations, let's wait until Huawei makes money selling PHS base stations before we talk about that.

(End of this chapter)